‘Invigorating and empowering’

On Wednesday, a spirited project called Now Matters Now launches with tools designed to help people work through suicidal thinking. It stands out because the team behind it, including the young researcher leading it, knows what suicidal thinking feels like.

Member Sarah Clingan, who shared parts of her journal, including the excerpt above, writes:

We’ve been working hard on it and really hope it can be a useful resource to those struggling.

The site is designed to be a simple, practical resource to use when you are suicidal or struggling with intense emotions and/or urges. We know, because we’ve been there, how hard it can be to focus on much when in those moments, so we wanted to make it as direct and easy to follow as possible while still providing DBT techniques that really work, because we’ve used them. We also hope that it can help decrease some of the loneliness and isolation that is often a part of contemplating suicide or mental illness. Many of the videos feature team members talking openly about their experience and what helped when they were struggling.

It’s been an incredible privilege to be a part of the team and work on the site. I’ve become close friends with several members and learned a great deal from all of them. It’s also been challenging and exhausting. As we both know, stigma is alive and well, and learning to navigate that and carry on has been hard at times. It’s made me realize even more the power and importance of the language we use and how different people’s experiences are within the realm of mental illness and suicide.

Overall, though, it’s been invigorating and empowering to be a part of something that will hopefully help save suffering and lives.